Darebin Creek Trail

Cyclists are thrilled that after 20 years of campaigning a missing link will be added to the Darebin Creek Trail in Ivanhoe, connecting it to the Main Yarra Trail, Kew East, allowing them to avoid dangerous main roads. The Darebin trail, which runs from Epping to the ring-road in Bundoora, will be extended from the Napier Waller Reserve, Ivanhoe, through the Latrobe golf course and into Willsmere Park, Kew East, near the Eastern Freeway. A 200-metre bridge connecting Latrobe Golf Club to Willsmere Park and a 50-metre span over the Yarra River will be built as part of the plans announced by the Andrews government last week.

The work, which will be completed in late 2017, will add an extra 1-kilometre section to the Darebin Creek Trail and provide a safe and more direct route for cyclists and walkers. The new section will mean that a longstanding gap in Melbourne’s bicycle network is filled and will create connectors to the Anniversary Trail, the Capital City Trail, the Koonung Creek Trail and the Gardiners Creek Trail, among others.

This $18 million project, funded by the Andrews Labor government — on top of the work of the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Luke Donnellan, to secure funding of $110 million for the Chandler Highway bridge duplication, which includes an underpass for cyclists and pedestrians, and $850 000 for the Rosanna Road safety upgrades, plus the curfew in place, which was an election commitment, on top of the 40-kilometre-per-hour zones that we have put through the shopping strips in Ivanhoe East and Ivanhoe — just shows that the roads minister and the Andrews Labor government are listening and acting on community concerns on public transport and roads in my electorate.